"Somewhat" being not that our biggest loss would be an obscure asian country, and a slight drop in rubber imports.
This time, we are talking about something that could disrupt our primary source of energy (oil) and which could lead to a catastrophe of our own economy.
We can't just pull out of Iraq like we did in Vietnam in '75. When the NV took over in Saigon, The only impacts politically/strategically were that we would only have Japan, Taiwan, and S.Korea as aligned governments in the region. Vietnam, even more than 30 years after, isn't a big player on the world economic stage. The country is still poor. Also, Vietnam was waged due to a clash of political ideologies. The situation in Iraq is more serious. The Middle East is a major supplier of oil to the western world(and now increasingly, China.) You only have to ask yourself, if we have another hostile, unstable government in the region, what the long term effects on the worldwide economy would be. China has been happily supplying arms to the middle east throughout this entire ordeal. They are on good terms with alot of the more belligerent governments. They are also buying quite a bit of oil. With another buyer like China, The Arabs could now cut us off and still have money come in. What would be the impact on our economy? We could have really serious problems, including partial/total economic collapse. Plus, our now chief economic rival, China, would benefit from this.
There is also the difference of political ideology vs. Religous belief. Religion unites the arab states at their foundation, So that no matter what they're differences when the West isn't there, they unite under one banner when we are. The recent Saudi arrests/Cell busts are one indication of this. Now, I will agree that communism does displace religion in it's dogma. But, As time has shown, Communism can and does eventually falter. Islam has been going strong for quite along time now, and it's not likely to run out of followers anytime soon.
I know that Saddam's regime did not seem like a good way to keep a balance in the middle east, but we may need to face facts, that it was the best thing going this side of military occupation.
